It’s truthful to say Honda’s been behind the ball in relation to electrical autos. Chevrolet launched the Bolt EV in 2016, Ford launched the Mustang Mach-E in 2020 and Tesla’s been doing its factor for much longer than that. Apart from compliance-car experiments just like the Honda Match EV, any People who wished a battery-powered Honda needed to wait till final yr when the Prologue burst onto the scene.
And because it seems, there have been a whole lot of People ready for simply that. Honda moved over 33,000 Prologues final yr, touchdown it the No.7 spot among the many best-selling electrical fashions and No.4 amongst non-Teslas. This got here as a shock to most of us who watch this {industry} intently. In any case, the Prologue can be a Common Motors EV beneath—hardly a severe electrical effort from Honda. And it did not even actually go on sale till the center of 2024.
Honda is now taking some classes from this case, considered one of its executives informed InsideEVs in a media briefing this week. Prologue consumers report “belief within the Honda model” as the highest cause for his or her purchases, American Honda vp of vehicle gross sales Lance Woelfer mentioned.
It additionally helps that Honda consumers already affiliate the model with greener vehicles, Woelfer mentioned. Though the Toyota Prius has successfully change into the iPhone of hybrids, it was really Honda that launched America’s first hybrid automobile in 1999, the Perception.
“We have had a hybrid technique for fairly a while to develop that shopper base that might have the probability to maneuver in that path,” he mentioned, which means in the direction of all-electric vehicles. “We wished to make it possible for we had an choice for them. We do not need them going outdoors the model.”
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So, the Prologue’s gangbusters success should not have been a shock in any respect. It additional proves one thing we already knew: People are hungry for electrical vehicles from the Japanese manufacturers they know, belief and imagine to be dependable—the precise manufacturers that folks look to for nice gas economic system and but have been slowest to affect.
Woelfer mentioned he isn’t stunned at how rapidly the Prologue took off final yr, particularly since Honda sellers had been asking for an EV to promote. (Though America’s automobile sellers have been among the loudest voices pushing towards speedy uptake of EVs, apparently an honest chunk assist this transition.)
Photograph by: Jeff Perez / Motor1
“One thing else that gave us confidence is the sellers had been letting us know they had been listening to from customers, ‘We’d like an EV car,’” he mentioned. “It actually sort of met the wants of these customers and the requests we had been getting from sellers to have an EV product.”
The Prologue can be coaching Honda’s sellers to promote and repair its future EVs, Woelfer mentioned in an e-mail. They’re getting follow promoting to first-time EV consumers and explaining issues they’ve by no means needed to earlier than, like dwelling charging choices, he mentioned. Optimistically, by the point Honda’s futuristic 0-Sequence EVs hit the market—vehicles which can be far more superior than the Prologue, thoughts you—it will not be sellers’ first rodeo.
This goes to indicate the ability of branding within the EV transition. The shift to EVs has given aggressive early movers like Tesla and Hyundai-Kia a gap to steal prospects from rival manufacturers to a level they wouldn’t have been in a position to in any other case. Many automakers say their EVs are profitable extra “conquests,” industry-speak for purchasers who are available from different manufacturers. And that is smart. As a result of electrical choices are nonetheless restricted, individuals intent on ditching fuel could also be extra open to contemplating new makes.
But many automobile consumers nonetheless have a deep loyalty to, and robust associations with, sure manufacturers. They don’t need an EV from simply anyone. They need a Honda. Or a Toyota. Taking the plunge into an EV is a giant way of life change, and it stands to cause that many consumers will need to go along with what they know.
Photograph by: Honda
Research bear this out. A Yahoo Finance-Ipsos ballot from 2023 requested People which automobile manufacturers they’d be more than likely to purchase an EV or a plug-in hybrid (PHEV) from. Honda got here in third place, regardless of not having any PHEVs or EVs on the U.S. market at the moment. Toyota claimed first, though it solely had one EV with fairly lackluster specs, the bZ4X. Tesla, by far the highest vendor of EVs on this nation, wound up in second.
EV gross sales development slowed within the U.S. in 2024. And a giant a part of which may be that EV-curious consumers simply don’t see sufficient choices in the marketplace that talk to them. The following wave of EV adoption rests on common automobile consumers with sensible issues—not early adopters. In different phrases, People who most likely lean extra towards Toyota or Honda than Tesla.
Luckily for them, each automakers are getting their acts collectively. Toyota, which has stubbornly caught to hybrids and never put a lot firepower behind EVs, says it’s realized from the complaints individuals had concerning the bZ4X. A 3-row Toyota EV is coming in 2026.
Photograph by: InsideEVs
The Honda 0-Sequence SUV and Saloon.
Honda’s subsequent EV, the Acura RSX, goes into manufacturing late this yr in Ohio, debuting the automaker’s next-generation {hardware} and software program. It’ll be adopted by Honda’s 0-Sequence sedan and SUV, and the Sony Honda Afeela 1.
Within the coming yr, Woelfer expects the Prologue to maintain chugging alongside and be a pacesetter within the section, though he says there are “a number of issues happening now which can be somewhat outdoors of our management that will have some influence.” Honda, like different automakers, says it’s retaining an in depth eye on whether or not the incoming Trump administration will get rid of the $7,500 federal EV tax credit score, a transfer that would depress EV demand.
“Affordability is one thing that’s key, and that influence is one thing that we’ll have to handle because it comes ahead,” he mentioned.
Contact the writer: Tim.Levin@InsideEVs.com
